


What If This Storm Ends

by codenamecynic



Series: It came from the tumblr-verse [11]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Awkward Conversations, F/M, Post-Reaper War, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-18
Updated: 2014-08-18
Packaged: 2018-02-13 15:19:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2155401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/codenamecynic/pseuds/codenamecynic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>She never used to be afraid of losing.  It wasn’t like she had all that much to lose, street-rat from Earth’s city slums, loose cannon wildcard shooting Batarians and kicking Krogan in the quad.  After Torfan she hadn’t even bothered to worry about her reputation; everyone got fair warning, it preceded her like a flag.  She’d been alone then, roving from unit to unit.  Genevieve Shepard would show up, blow the heads off a few things, get a couple of people killed and disappear into the night, just another redacted name on a file that didn’t exist.  Little better than a triggerman; Hackett’s rogue enforcer.</i>
</p><p> </p><p><i>And then</i> he <i>showed up, and ruined everything.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	What If This Storm Ends

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hallianna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hallianna/gifts).



> Written for (and edited by) my dear friend Halliana, in response to the word prompt "Petrichor - The smell of dry rain on the ground for Shenko, after the war"

She never in a thousand years thought her house on Intai’sei would still be standing.  With the home planets of every major race in the galaxy in all but ashes, it was too easy to assume that the little place in the backwater of a rock on the ass end of nowhere would have simply disappeared.

The idea of her owning a house was ludicrous.  She couldn't even keep fish alive.

Still, it was a place to go.  Little more than a spartan bachelor pad, there would be no reporters outside her door trying to get a snapshot of the famous Commander Shepard, savior of the galaxy, mass murderer extraordinaire.  No one had even tried to kill her here yet, which was new and different, and the only reason that she let Kaidan come within ten feet of the place.

Like he wasn't one of the most powerful biotics she’d ever met, and the second human Spectre.  Right.

She’d come here only one other time, with Garrus and Zaeed, kicking and screaming at fate and giving the Illusive Man the finger.  She might have sort of kidnapped Zaeed if she was being honest, but he’d weathered it well.  It explained the state of the place anyway, why the back room was booby trapped and all the kitchen cabinets full of guns.

Garrus was back on Palaven, playing nice with the Primarch and the Council and probably hating every minute of it.  She’d heard Zaeed died in the assault on London, holding an overpass against an onslaught of Reaper ground troops.  He’d saved a lot of civilians that day, the big one-eyed softy.  She’d been dead at the time, _again,_ and  hadn't been able to give him the funeral he deserved, but she heard there was a statue going up in his honor.  Saint Massani.  Who would have figured.

Really, none of them were the same.  The war had changed them, her most of all.

She never used to be afraid of losing.  It wasn't like she had all that much to lose, street-rat from Earth’s city slums, loose cannon wildcard shooting Batarians and kicking Krogan in the quad.  After Torfan she hadn't even bothered to worry about her reputation; everyone got fair warning, it preceded her like a flag.  She’d been alone then, roving from unit to unit.  Genevieve Shepard would show up, blow the heads off a few things, get a couple of people killed and disappear into the night, just another redacted name on a file that didn't exist.  Little better than a triggerman; Hackett’s rogue enforcer.

And then _he_ showed up, and ruined everything.

Even after all of this, it was still hard to admit that she actually cared what Kaidan thought about her, that she might regret – just a little – all those years of not giving a shit.  The field on which she grew her fucks was barren, burned and salted, there was none to be had for any price.

And yet – _and yet._

He’d gotten to her somehow, pulled her out of her collision course with the sun and into his orbit.  Changed her.  Saved her.

Fucking asshole.  She never asked for help, had never begged for mercy from anyone, not even with the barrel of a gun pressed up against her temple.

But she’d never been in love before, either.  Never loved a thing in her life - not even her life - and she probably would have crumpled it up into a ball, thrown it into the nearest vorcha-infested ditch like a grenade and watched it all go up in flames had it not been for the way he talked to her.  Like a person.  Like a woman, and not just an itchy trigger finger.

Obviously his first mistake.

She used to wish that she’d let him die on Virmire, let him fall on that nuke like a sword rather than infect her with _integrity_.  When Sovereign came down on the Citadel like a ton of shit-covered bricks she would have let the Destiny Ascension twist, might have slapped a crown on Udina’s head and set him on a throne of skulls too.  All things considered that probably wouldn’t have turned out great, but it would have saved her the trouble of hanging up on the Council all those times.

There were a lot of things she could have done differently.

She could have let Joker go down with the Normandy and spent the descent to Alchera having Liara paint her toenails.  She could have bailed on the Illusive Man, dropped Karin off at a day spa, and run off with Jack to be pirate queens of the Terminus System.  She could have slept more, fucked more, wasted more credits and less time worrying about doing the right thing.

Shepard never used to do the right thing.  She did the smart thing, the expedient thing, the thing that would cost her the least and still get her where she needed to go.

They all looked at her like she was crazy too, even Samara, when she told them to pick their ports of harbor after Bahak.  She couldn't even do anything to explain it; no one would have believed the reason.

It goes back to 2183.  Eden Prime, the first ground mission with a brand new team.  Ancient history.  Everyone knew you didn’t go around poking unfamiliar alien tech.  You either threw a couple of scientists at it or called in an airstrike.  Textbook.  She’d paid the price for his mistake, and still –

Kaidan was there when she woke up in the medbay, feeling like she’d spent the night slam dancing in a Krogan mosh pit.  He’d sat there the entire time, dark brows drawn together over those soft whiskey-colored eyes, watching her drool into her coma with a massive migraine because he _cared_.

No one had ever cared before.  Not like that, like she was a – person.  She’d loaded herself into a coffin and started hammering the nails in, right then and there.

Only she never said, never told him, never acted on it.  Didn’t think about him while the vacuum sucked the oxygen out of her suit, didn't reread his message after Horizon a thousand times, and _certainly_ didn’t look at that picture of he and Ash and Wrex all covered in slime after the Thorian mission on Feros.

Didn't miss him.  Didn't wonder where he was those six months she spent in lockdown.

Didn't fuck Vega either, though.  And didn't leave a newly minted Major behind when she got her five seconds of _I told you_ so before everything on Earth went to shit.

She’d gone to the hospital and stared at his bruised body for an hour, willing him to either get up or die, caught in uncomfortable limbo.  She didn't like to wait; if she was waiting she wasn't moving, and if she wasn't moving, she was dead.  She’d had enough of dead.

Shepard hadn't been there when he woke up, had wandered in late with a bottle of alcohol that probably would have murdered him in combination with his pain medication.  She was thoughtful like that.  But she hadn't mocked him a single time, hadn't gloated.  Hadn't told him that EDI had hacked herself into the mech that almost crushed his skull either, but what was life without its little surprises.

What mattered was, he followed her.  To the edge of the galaxy and back to Earth again, those whiskey eyes were on her six.

"Sometimes the way a thing goes down does matter, Shepard,” he’d said.  “Later, when you have to live with yourself. Knowing that you acted with integrity — then it _matters.”_

Turns out it did.  Too little too late, of course, shot to hell and bleeding out next to Anderson inside a multibillion credit hunk of junk that wouldn’t fire if you lit it with a fucking match.  But it mattered.

When she made her choice, it mattered.

And when she fell to earth, it mattered.

A freefall into oblivion made you see certain things kind of clear, and when she woke up with all her cybernetics hanging out, it mattered that he wasn't there.

But he was here now.  Shit, it was almost like she couldn't get rid of him.  The door opened behind her while she stared straight ahead, gripping the handrail of the little patio tacked on to the side of the house.  It smelled like rain, a storm coming in on the wind, and as ready as she was for it to break she didn't ever seem to have the sense to step out of its path.

“Shepard?  You okay?”

He had this way about him that just ruined her, every time.  How he was so sincere, how he meant everything he said.  How he cared – how he wouldn't ask if he didn't.

“Yeah, no.  Yeah.”  Fuck, this was horrible.  “I’m good.”  Or not.

He knew her well enough by now to be able to tell when she’s bullshitting.  “Something on your mind?”

“No.”  She wanted to tell him to fuck off and mind his own goddamn business, because she was classy that way.  And she liked to wreck things.  Like she brought him here to stare at this dusty red rock of a planet for fun, and not because of _reasons._  “Maybe.”

This shouldn't be so hard.

“You know I like you.”

“Yeah?” He said it like she’d asked him a question and was expecting something else to follow it up, and they stared at each other for a while until what she wasn’t saying clicked in his head.  She could see it hit like a concussion round, rocking him back on his heels.  “Huh.  No shit.”

Where was Garrus when she needed him, with one of his dry, witty one-liners that would save her from herself?  She hadn’t blushed since she was a teenager; if the Asari Consort hadn’t thrown her off her game, she’d be damned if some stupid marine was going to, with his perfect hair and his big hands and that slow, sweet smile.

_Goddamn it._  “Fuck it, never mind.  This is stupid.  I should go.”

“Gen.”

Her jaw was so tight it felt like it was going to rip itself out of her face, and she dug her gloved fingers into it, trying to rub away the tension.  Not that it worked, of course, and her eyes were on the sky rather than on his face, probably looking like they were trying to roll up into the back of her head.

And this was why Shepard had a ‘fucking only’ policy.  Feelings were gross, and hard, and it made her feel – less than.  Like she’d brought the wrong weapons to a fight and was slugging away with her bare fists.

She wasn't about to damsel herself with some hideous line about yearning for a gentle touch, she really had no use for that, but his hand was on her arm and she’d be a big fat fucking liar if she said there wasn’t a part of her that wished she could feel the warmth of his skin on hers. She could feel his eyes searching her face, always cautious, always careful to leave himself a way out.  She wasn’t good at that; Shepard exits tended to be the kind blown through walls with RPGs.

“Look I’m not – expecting anything.”

What else could she really say, already in this deep?  She never could dance, wasn't inclined to step back when he stepped in, and face to face she felt like she ought to brace for a punch in the mouth, but he put both hands on her hips and kissed her instead.

It was awkward in a way, hardsuit scraping hardsuit, ceramic plating unyielding where her flesh would have melted off her bones.  He held her like he knew he couldn't break her, not aggressive, just firm, but his lips, his kiss –

Kaidan kissed her like he’d been waiting to do it for fifty thousand years, and when he pulled back, let her up for air, for once in her life she couldn't think of anything to say to ruin the moment.

 

 


End file.
